Wednesday, December 11, 2013

Sure you know of
Haematology….do you know Karl Landsteiner ? ~ and what is wrong with these women happily posing ?!?!?

Haematology is the study of blood, of the
blood-forming organs, and blood diseases. The laboratory work that goes into
the study of blood is frequently performed by a medical technologist. Today it
is well known that persons with blood group AB can accept donations of the
other blood groups, and that persons with blood group O can donate to all other
groups. Individuals with blood group AB are referred to as universal recipients
and those with blood group O are known as universal donors. In modern time, blood transfusions only
concentrates of red blood cells without serum are transmitted, which is of
great importance in surgical practice.

Karl Landsteiner was an
Austrian biologist and physician (June 14, 1868 – June 26, 1943). He is noted for
having first distinguished the main blood groups in 1900, having developed the
modern system of classification of blood groups from his identification of the
presence of agglutinins in the blood, and having identified, with Alexander S.
Wiener, the Rhesus factor, in 1937, thus enabling physicians to transfuse blood
without endangering the patient′s life. With Constantin Levaditi and Erwin Popper, he discovered the polio
virus, in 1909. In 1930 he received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
He was awarded a Lasker Award in 1946 posthumously and is recognised as the
father of transfusion medicine. Based on his findings, in 1907 the first
successful blood transfusion was performed by Reuben Ottenberg at Mount SinaiHospital
in New York. He is recognised as the father of transfusion
medicine.

According to a bloodbank
website,
every year our nation requires about 4 Crore units of blood, out of which only
a meager 40 Lakh units of blood are available. The gift of blood is the gift of
life. There is no substitute for human blood. Every two seconds someone needs
blood. More than 38,000 blood donations are needed every day. Accident victims,
child birth, transfusion, chronic kidney ailment patients, people undergoing
surgery – all require many units of blood.

Blood cannot be manufactured – it can
only come from generous donors. Type O-negative blood (red cells) can be
transfused to patients of all blood types. It is always in great demand and
often in short supply. Type AB-positive plasma can be transfused to patients of
all other blood types. AB plasma is also usually in short supply. With the
advancement in techniques, donating blood is a safe process. A sterile needle
is used only once for each donor and then discarded. The actual blood donation
typically takes less than 10-12 minutes. The entire process, from the time you
arrive to the time you leave, takes about an hour and 15 min. The average adult
has about 10 units of blood in his body. Roughly 1 unit is given during a
donation. A healthy donor may donate red blood cells every 56 days, or double
red cells every 112 days. A healthy donor may donate platelets as few as 7 days
apart, but a maximum of 24 times a year.

Donors can give either whole blood or
specific blood components only. The process of donating specific blood
components – red cells, plasma or platelets – is called apheresis. There are
always good Samaritans, who help others by donating blood. Often there are touching scenes in the wake
of unfortunate accidents and destructive terror incidents – with good people
lining up in queue to donate blood and save lives. Long live their tribe.

There are four main blood
types: A, B, AB and O. The World remains indebted to Karl Landsteiner, who
discovered the first 3 human blood groups.
Remembering his achievements, June 14th is celebrated as ‘World Blood
donors day’ every year. SYMA also has
been actively propagating blood donation. Our volunteers regularly donate blood
and we utilized the hype of World Cup 2011 by organizing a Cricket competition
thereby enlisting more blood donors in our fold ….. there are many voluntary
Organisations which regularly conduct blood donation camps and propagate the
values and need of blood donation.

Plumbing new depths of
sycophancy, dozens of Mahila Congress activists happily posed for photographs
claiming that they had donated blood to mark the birthday of party president
Sonia Gandhi, at Gandhi Bhavan in Hyderabad
onMonday. The problem, however, was
that very few of them — three by our count — had actually donated blood. The
rest merrily posed for pictures on the stretcher.

State Mahila Congress
president Akula Lalitha said that 15 activists had donated blood. She said it
was common for publicity hounds to pose for pictures with fake claims. Doctors
from Red Cross Society, Barkatpura, who collected the blood, said that they had
faced such situations many a times.